"Your biggest challenge isn't someone else. Its the ache in your lungs and the burning in your legs, and the voice inside you that yells 'CAN'T', but you don't listen. You just push harder. And then you hear the voice whisper, 'can'. And you discover that the person you thought you were is no match for the one you really are." ~unknown~

Sierra

Sierra

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Started off this morning intending to go moderate. I was going solo on Green for the first time in a few weeks, so I brought along my Mp3 player. As I started walking through the West edge of Chautauqua, my legs were feeling pretty tight and tired, so I figured even going moderate was going to be an effort. Having gone on a recent road trip, my Mp3 player was set up with a variety of music that Allison and I could both agree on, instead of my usual line up of sports podcasts. I spent my warmup and the first 6-7 minutes scrolling through songs and trying to find my Endurance Planet podcasts, but with all the auto tagging fancy smarty stuff going on, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack, so I got pi$$ed and turned it off and yanked out the headphones.

By now, the first junction had passed and I decided to bump up my pace a bit. I was never giving it too much, just rolling along at a good clip and I started to notice some decent splits. As I went up, my legs felt better and better with each step. I started thinking about 33-34 range and really started gassing it good at 27-28 minutes into the run. I knew it would be desperately close and I could taste the pain of the effort over the final few switchbacks, but my legs felt AWESOME. I made it in 33:49:92. I figured that was my 2nd fastest, but after a quick search of my logs when I got back, I realized it is a PR by a second or less! This buoyed my confidence a bit after my somewhat disappointing ascent of Grays on Saturday. I think as long as I don't mess up in the next 2 weeks, I am in a good position.